Davis GOP chief says ethics complaint against him dismissed

Bryon Saxton, Standard-Examiner Staff

FARMINGTON — An ethics complaint filed against Davis County Republican Party chairman Phill Wright has been dismissed as having “no merit,” according to Wright.

But Wright’s claim is one the Davis County Republican Party’s Ethics Committee will neither confirm or deny.

A complaint against Wright was made by party secretary Kathleen Anderson earlier this month after Wright verbally attacked her in a party meeting and interfered with her duties in being able to provide to the public the list of Davis County Republican Party delegates, according to an email the Standard-Examiner obtained from an anonymous source.

Anderson declined to comment Thursday.

“I would also like it formally noted that, as Davis County Republican Party secretary, one of my duties, per the bylaws, is to maintain the delegate lists. To this day (April 4), and despite written requests to obtain it, the official lists which have been provided to the DCRP chair by the Utah GOP have never been provided to me,” Anderson said in an email to Wright, which she also copied to the five members of the Davis GOP ethics committee.

Wright said on Tuesday night the Davis GOP ethics committee reviewed the complaint, and dismissed it based on it having no merit.

Wright said he does not want to have the issue linger.

“I want everybody to work together as a team and that is something we can do,” Wright said.

“As the chair of the ethics committee, I am not authorized to publicly speak on behalf of any complainant or accused,” party Ethics Committee chairman Joe Levi said in an email in response to Wright’s claim.

“Under the DCRP bylaws, the ethics committee is chartered with holding private hearings, conducting investigations, making findings, and privately reporting those findings to the (party’s) executive committee,” Levi said in his email to the Standard-Examiner.

“Since investigations and reports are private, it would be inappropriate for any member of the ethics committee to comment on any complaint outside a closed session of the executive committee, and then only as prescribed by the bylaws,” Levi said.

“As such, I can neither confirm nor deny whether such a complaint has been submitted, heard, investigated, concluded, or reported to the executive committee,” Levi said.

Levi indicated in his email that his response to the Standard-Examiner was copied to both Wright and Anderson because the newspaper specifically mentioned the two by name in its email to the ethics committee seeking a response.

Anderson’s complaints against Wright were made known by the email provided by an anonymous source just days before Saturday’s Davis GOP convention.

Wright claimed in an earlier story he had done nothing wrong.

Contact reporter Bryon Saxton at 801-625-4244 or bsaxton@standard.net, or follow him on Twitter at @BryonSaxton.